


International Incident

by linascribbles



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Peggy Carter, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Peggy Carter, F/M, POV Peggy Carter, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Slow Burn, World Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25319014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linascribbles/pseuds/linascribbles
Summary: Peggy Carter rose through the diplomatic ranks in the midst of the Incident and in her short career already stablished herself as a skilled and well-connected negotiator. Stationed in the Washington DC embassy, she's right on the front lines of the fallout of Project Insight. Governments get purged, new and unexpected doors open, and Peggy Carter is nothing if not resourceful.As she gets plunged into a world of spies, mad scientists and superheroes, familiar faces start to pop up. Particularly one pesky Captain America, who seems to have no idea what international law entails and considers country borders mere suggestions.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Peggy Carter, Peggy Carter & Angie Martinelli, Peggy Carter & Natasha Romanov, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 28
Kudos: 59





	1. Poster

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! Here I am back again with yet another slow burn that took a million times more words than I expected and is poorly researched, so if you work or live in any of the fields or cities mentioned, sorry for butchering your reality (feel free to tell correct me, I really am bad at field research).  
> This wasn't meant to see the light of day till like, 2021, but you know, wtv.  
> Rating will go up but in a million years, so don't worry about it yet (I do mean it about the slow burn). There will be a few scenes involving mild or passing harrasment, nothing beyond what women sadly experience every day, but I thought it fair to warn. As this fic is gonna be long (106k!?) it's barely a speck in the grand scheme of it.  
> Thanks are due to penny4alittlehope (tumblr) and lazyfish (ao3) for beta'ing this monster and putting up with my ramblings. Go check out their stuff! We're still going through it and I'll start posting when we hit halfway, subscribe if you wanna know when that is!

Alt version:

First chapter coming soon! If images aren't loading try [here](https://linaxart.tumblr.com/post/624624496007135232/steggy-week-day-7-free-day-i-went-full). 


	2. Chapter 1

“I’m going to murder Captain America,” Peggy gritted out, looking out the window as if from the embassy she could see more than a faint trail of smoke from the wreckage the Avenger had left behind. 

_Taking down a whole armed quinjet alone with just his dinner plate and a Harley? In the driveway of one of the biggest spy headquarters in the whole world? What kind of dramatic idiot is he? Does he not know a thing about subtlety? Terribly stupid._

_But incredibly breathtaking_ , a voice whispered in the back of her mind, which she pointedly ignored.

After that, the call for his arrest hadn’t been particularly surprising. Peggy was completely in the dark as to what could have possibly caused Pierce to turn against his most prized possession, but she’d wager Fury’s death played a significant role in it.

Overall, the entire situation seemed to be a complete clusterfuck, and Captain Steven Grant Rogers was smack in the middle of it.

It had all started the previous day when Peggy had been ferried from her house in a rush after the first signs of trouble made themselves known. In the subtle form of a cyborg blowing up Nick Fury’s van in the middle of downtown. The embassy was far and secure enough for the moment, though arrangements for an emergency exit were already being made.

Fury’s death shortly afterwards had caused her greater sorrow than she would have expected. She and Fury had crossed paths on several occasions (diplomacy in the age of superheroes and supervillains had a lot less to do with making friends and drinking cocktails than it did in previous times) and they had developed a mutual respect and admiration for each other that Peggy appreciated. With his passing she lost an ally, and the intelligence community lost one of its greatest players.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” Peggy cursed, throwing her phone in her desk after another infuriatingly short and uninformative call to one of her American contacts. “Why is everyone so tight-lipped? I can’t handle fallout if I don’t know what exploded in the first place!” She looked up at her assistant, who was furiously tipping on her computer and gave no answer. Without knowing what to do, she turned on the TV and flipped to a news channel. The newscaster's frantic voice made her look up. 

It was an aerial shot of the action, some kind of fight going on in the street. The cyborg was there again. So was Captain Rogers, recognizable thanks to his shield and the almost inhuman way he fought. Some other man was there as well but she didn’t recognize him. He was black, fit and clearly proficient in some military training, evidenced by the way he disarmed an assailant with his bare hands, wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and jeans.

Rogers was going straight at the cyborg, unarmed after losing his shield to a van door.

“Sodding twat never can think things through, can he?” She gripped out, hands flexing over the wooden armrest.

“ _Peggy!_ That's Captain America you’re talking about!” Angie exclaimed, seemingly forgetting she was talking to a born and bred brit.

"‘Captain America’ my arse,” she scoffed. “Behind that shield and cowl you yanks love so much is a man. A real, human, flawed man, and one of such flaws being that he's an absolute idiot."

Before her assistant could express her outrage at the defamation of their national icon, another figure moved from behind a car in the news feed and Peggy’s breath caught - Natasha’s red hair was unmistakable.

“Natasha is there?” She furrowed her brow.

Something wasn’t right, that much was obvious- any other day, she could understand some scuffle in the middle of the street with a truly terrifying looking cyborg (superheroes and supervillains seemed to be fighting everyday and everywhere these days), though she’d admit that Captain America in the streets of the Capital was… unusual. Either way, that could be understandable -maybe the cyborg had a vendetta against SHIELD. First Fury, then this. But not paired with the recent events and rumors going around.

She was starting to realize why Natasha hadn’t been returning her calls. 

The arrests made her raise her eyebrows. She looked at the scene playing in front of her, dread churning in her stomach. Natasha, clearly injured, was thrown into a black van. Captain Rogers was subdued to his knees, seemingly pliant under the black-clad hands of the SHIELD agents. There was a second there, when one of the agents held their rifle to his head, that Peggy felt her blood run cold with the certainty that they were going to execute him right there. For everyone to see.

After a few eternal seconds, the SHIELD agent lowered their rifle and Rogers, along with his t-shirt clad friend, were hauled to the same van Natasha had disappeared into before.

Peggy had complete confidence in Natasha’s abilities - her judgment and intel - which is what made her involvement in this mess so much more perplexing. She picked her phone back up, it was ringing again.

“Margaret Carter,” she greeted without looking at the ID.

“Miss Carter, this is Alexander Pierce. As I’m sure you’ve seen, Steven Rogers and Natasha Romanoff have been taken into custody.” Peggy took note of the lack of titles.

“Indeed they have, I can’t deny that I have been rather perplexed by the last few days’ events. Nick’s death, well, it was incredibly unexpected,” Peggy kept her tone even, letting only a polite hint of her surprise and upset show through.

“I’m afraid these arrests have actually been due to the ongoing investigation on Nicholas’ death. We have reason to believe Rogers is withholding important information. Most importantly, it’s purely an internal affair and it should in no way affect the coming meeting of the World Security Council. Now that he’s in custody, there's no reason to believe he’ll be bothering anyone again.”

“I’m sure the truth will come out, eventually,” she couldn’t help the slight dig. There was something in this whole affair that was causing an itch in her brain. Something wasn’t right. _Who was that cyborg? And who did he answer to?_ “Meanwhile, I’ll make sure to let my people know the meeting is still a go.”

“Thank you, Miss Carter,” he said, voice smooth as velvet and Peggy felt her body tense. “Great things are coming, I’d hate to see them derailed because one disobedient soldier doesn’t want to follow orders.”

“Of course not,” she gritted out, suspicion growing every second. “Goodbye, Mr. Pierce.”

“Goodbye, Miss Carter.”

She hung up, an uncomfortable sort of itch all over her body. She hated the way he said her name.

* * *

The loud sound of a phone vibrating against wood snapped Peggy out of her funk. The last two days were starting to weigh on her and the walls of the embassy were starting to feel like a prison. Her head snapped towards her desk to see her personal phone shaking violently. She rushed towards it, grabbing it before it fell off. One glance at the caller ID and her breath caught.

“ _Natasha_ , what the hell is going on?”

“Pegs, I don’t have much time. I need you to be ready, big shit is about to go down; the type that topples governments. I need you to do what you do best and manage collateral. This goes all the way to the top. _You can’t trust anyone_ ,” she emphasized every word.

“Natasha what is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s HYDRA. SHIELD is not as clean as we liked to believe.”

Her breath got stuck halfway through her throat. _SHIELD? Corrupted? By_ HYDRA _? They still exist?_ Reality was starting to feel like a walking nightmare.

“The World Security Council meeting,” she let out, connecting at least a couple dots, even as she felt quite far from grasping the whole picture.

“That’s part of it. Steve, Sam, and I we got away and we have a plan, alright? It’s risky, and pretty stupid, if I’m honest, but it’s all we have. There’s going to be an info dump in a couple hours, and it’s gonna be _huge_. You’ll have to get on top of it, alright?”

“Yes, I understand,” she said.

“But first, I need your help.” Nat’s voice took a merry tint, “how do you feel about commiting a little bit of treason for the greater good?” Peggy barked a laugh that felt completely disconnected from her general situation.

“You really only save the very best for me, don’t you? What do you need?”

“The route and procedures of the British representative for the World Security Council, no biggie.”

* * *

Time passed both incredibly fast and desperately slowly. Phone call after phone call, she started to set up as good a network as she could to contain the fallout of something she didn’t even know what it was. She got Daniel on a video call, Maria Hill in a muted line, an MI6 link that she wasn’t completely sure who was manning except that it was secure, and Angie on her computer, refreshing the news and databases they had access to every five seconds. 

In the end, the final stroke was as subtle as a tsunami. 

She should have figured superheroes didn’t deal in half-measures.

It started while she was in the middle of a call.

“I request diplomatic asylum!,” a voice was screaming in the receiver, she had no idea who it was. “I’m being politically persecuted under false claims. The United States’ government has lost its mind!” The voice sounded vaguely familiar however, _maybe a senator?_

“I’m afraid diplomatic asylum is something the British government does not grant lightly,” she replied. Not many people had this number, so she doubted it was some small fish, nonetheless, these were bold claims. “If you could make your way to the embassy we could continue this in person. With credentials and proof, perhaps we could see what we can work out.”

“There is no time I-!” Whatever he was going to say next got lost as Angie let out a gasp.

“Peggy! Oh my god, _Peggy!”_ She looked up at her from her screen, eyes huge and terrified. She ditched her phone and rounded her desk to stare at the news stream.

It was the Triskelion, and it was burning.

Peggy and Angie anxiously watched the building burn, some windows exploded and the lights flickered on the windows. It was clear some sort of fight was going on inside. Her hands itched with the need to do something - grab a gun, punch someone, it didn’t matter - anything except the maddeningly passive role of an observer.

The feed alternated between an aerial view and trying to follow Captain Rogers and his flying companion -Sam, Natasha had called him. It seemed they really had managed to escape capture and were hell bent on blowing up all of downtown.

“The capital is being burned down by a national icon, what even is life at this point.” Angie let out a slightly hysterical laugh and Peggy couldn’t help but sympathize. There was something deeply unsettling about the whole affair. She found it felt more surreal than the alien invasion of New York. For that event, she hadn’t been in the city, and while the fallout had provided her with an opportunity to climb up the ranks in the chaos and make a name for herself, this was different. Aliens and superheroes being real was _all around_ unbelievable, even with Iron Man’s precedent. So strange and removed from her everyday life that the difference was scarcely felt. But a government, a fight between people, agents, _humans_ all around, in the middle of the city - that shook her to the core.

Her brow furrowed as she watched the stream, there was something wrong with the water, it was rippling. Peggy leaned in closer to the screen on instinct, as if that would allow her to make out more details. The river was parting. No, huge, unbelievable floodgates were opening. The water poured into the underground facility and something started to rise out. Peggy lifted her hand to her mouth in astonishment as she realized what they were. Helicarriers. Three of them.

Immense, dull grey, and seemingly impossible. They lifted into the air, turbines creating perfectly circular ripples in the water. She felt her blood run cold. She could only look at them in abject horror as they rose to the sky. They climbed upwards and the news feed was cut off, probably as the helicopter was destabilized from the massive winds they created. The newscasters were frantic, trying to make sense of what they were seeing. All kinds of theories rose to the occasion, but Peggy knew; she was fully aware of what this meant. Natasha had been clear in her words: HYDRA was after domination, by their hand and no one else’s. She highly doubted those ships were unarmed. This was control, in its simplest and most primitive form: a weapon to the head. 

She looked out the window, there, in the distance, was smoke billowing out and the helicarriers were starkly visible against the cloudy sky, three massive grey shapes were rising into the air. She felt her hand start to tremble. 

_How could they? How could the World Security Concil be so stupid? No order based on fear endured, history was full of examples of them. Do they not own a history book? Do they not know human nature?_

Angie got up and went to stand next to her. They both looked out the window and their hands found each other. They held on tight as they watched the helicarriers rise in the distance. A silent tear slid down Peggy’s cheek.

“I- I guess Nat didn’t make it,” just saying the words hurt her throat. 

Natasha, she still remembered her as when she first saw her, dressed to kill in more ways than one at that gala. Her mind eagerly took the chance to distract itself from the horrors in front of her and replayed the night in front of her eyes.

It had been her first diplomatic mission, as an aide in the British Embassy in Budapest, all the way back before aliens opened up portals in the sky. It was supposed to be simple, making contacts, making sure trade deals stayed on track. It had been anything but. 

Natasha had walked in and the whole room had held its breath. She’d glided, graceful and poised into the room, not a care in the world. She’d made a straight beeline for the most powerful person in the room only to be intercepted by an unfortunately clumsy waiter who had spilled a cherry red drink all over her dress. Peggy was not stupid, or clueless, even then. She could tell there was more going on than it met the eye; so she charmingly offered to help Natasha with her dress and accompanied her to the bathroom to get clean.

They talked, and maybe Peggy had been more forthcoming about her past than normal, because there was a little voice in her head that said that lying or deceit would be easily picked up on. Nat had reciprocated the honesty, somewhat. Her dress had been ruined beyond repair, so instead of walking back to the party they had made their way to her hotel room. By the time they got there, Barton was already waiting for them.

Peggy couldn’t even dream of retailing the following scuffle, only that it had ended in a stalemate. Guns pointed at each other, with Peggy standing in the middle. So she did what she did best, she negotiated. 

Even after her recruitment into SHIELD and Peggy’s constant travelling as part of the service, they managed to keep in touch and meet up whenever possible. She was one of her closest friends.

 _And now she’s dead,_ she thought, biting into her lip to contain a sob. _There is_ _no way she would have allowed the helicarriers to rise if she could prevent it, it has to mean-_

She hadn’t realized she had closed her eyes, lost in her own head until Angie squeezed her hand urgently with a gasp. Peggy snapped her eyes open to see the helicarriers explode. 

* * *

One month and a half later

* * *

Peggy kicked the front door closed behind her, dropped her purse in the console table and flung her keys into the bowl. She thought briefly of hurling off her heels too but the prospect of having to bend down to pick them up was too much. Her feet had been numb for hours anyways.

_First, wine._

She had finally finished with the meetings and talks, and whatever you could call those chats that weren’t official but totally counted. There was nothing she wanted more than to collapse on her couch, fall asleep and forget about the very existence of sovereign nations for a couple of days.

She had been pleasantly surprised by the sudden gap in her schedule. It had been packed non-stop for the last month and a half, but she’d guessed everyone had a limit. She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Some rest would do her good. Similarly to the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the fallout of Project Insight had provided a lot of opportunities for new faces - especially when a considerable chunk of the old ones had turned out to be HYDRA. 

She was grabbing the wine glass out of the cupboard when her hair in the back of her neck rose with the distinct feeling of being watched. She only froze for a millisecond before her left hand went, slowly, line of sight covered by her own body, to the knife block in front of her.

“ _That_ won’t be necessary, Miss Carter,” a crisp, British voice said from behind her. “I come in peace, and with a job offer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to say I have no idea when I'll be able to upload the next one given this is an euphoria-induced decision born out of finally finishing some long-standing irl stuff. So, spare a comment or kudo for a burnout author if you liked it, maybe? I could use the dopamine


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 or Why Do You Show Up Everywhere?  
> Some action, first dash of Steve's POV, a flashback and some planning.

“Agent Carter, it seems we miscalculated the number of HYDRA agents present on the premises.”

“Yes, Jarvis,” Peggy gripped and flung a crystal ashtray at one of the men coming for her. It got him right in the forehead with a sickening thud. “I’ve noticed.”

She was lucky this fine establishment didn’t allow weapons inside. This particular building technically didn’t allow women either, but that hadn’t stopped her. The sound of glass crunching underfoot clued her just in time to turn around and swing the golf club. She miscalculated the height, however, and hit the approaching assailant in the shoulder instead of the head. Fortunately, the force of the blow was enough to unbalance him and he stumbled. Her next swing got him in the temple and he crumbled to the floor in an unconscious heap.

She turned around and surveilled the room, noticing there was no one else left standing. The five men that had attacked her were now lying on the floor in various states of incapacity. The room was among the most exclusive in the club and didn’t have any cameras - the people outside had no way of knowing that the waitress who looked somewhat similar to that British diplomat who had once worked in DC had, in under five minutes, just bested five HYDRA agents without the help of any traditional weapons.

“I’m afraid I didn't mean those men, Agent. There seems to be fights going on in the hallway, foyer, and golf course as well.”

As she crept closer to the door, the sounds of some kind of commotion could, indeed, be heard through the heavy oak door. She spared a look at the unconscious agents strewn over the plush carpet. Not wanting to take any chances, she took her perfume bottle from one of her pockets and, holding her breath, quickly sprayed their faces with the concentrated Zolpidem. 

_That’ll keep them under for at least a couple hours._

“Jarvis, could you send someone over to round these men up? I don’t know what’s going on outside this door, but one of them is bound to know what is going on with the rumours we’ve heard.”

“Certainly. I will dispatch someone right away.”

Peggy walked back to the door, the gulf club firmly gripped in her hand, and, with a deep breath, pushed the door open. The adjacent corridor was empty, if you didn’t count the three unconscious men laying on the ground. Grunts of pain and sounds of a scuffle were coming from past the bend on the right. Peggy inched over there, carefully sidestepping the human obstacles. As she was about to peek over to see who the fighters were, a large, circular, red, white and blue blur zoomed over her head, nearly taking her out.

“What in the bloody hell?!”

With a metallic clank, the blur bounced off the wall and rebounded back before she could identify what it was more clearly, though she already had her suspicions. Not willing to risk her head again, she took off her fake glasses and used the reflection to see beyond the bend.

As she suspected, Captain America seemed to be fighting some HYDRA agents in the hallway. There was one already on the floor that she could see, plus the two more laying on the ground closer to her. The close quarters didn’t let him use his shield as often as he normally would, but he wasn’t losing the fight either. She guessed it’d take him one more minute, one and a half, tops, until he was the last one left standing. 

She sighed inwardly, _typical of him to show up out of nowhere and throw a wrench in my plans._

She turned around, ready to leave and make her way back to keep her cover, only to come face to face with two more agents. These were guards, if their guns and outfits were to be taken into account. It was no surprise, really, that security had been alerted, what, with the racket Captain America was making.

She let out a shrill squeal at the sight of the guards, putting on a frightened front. She dropped the cub behind her, secretly hoping they hadn't seen it, and rushed towards them, blabbering.

“ _Oh my god_ , I- I don’t know what’s going on. I was on my way to the saloon but there was a fight and-” _Just a couple more steps_ , the suspicion in the guards’ eyes was quickly morphing into annoyance. “They were on the floor, _oh my god are they dead?!_ ”

Right as she was coming up between them, she lunged towards the gun of the guard on the right, knocking it out of his grasp as she kicked the other man squarely in the knee. The sudden pain made him drop the gun in favour of clutching his injured leg.

 _Amateur_.

A swift elbow to the head and another kick put them both out of commission. 

The hallway was getting crowded. She took one of the guns and turned around in the nick of time to see the Captain barrel in, doing a remarkable job of hiding behind that metal dinner plate of his. She didn’t raise her gun at him and he didn’t advance on her. He rather seemed a bit stunned. He was staring straight at her, mouth agape. Maybe he had hit his head? She couldn’t truly blame him for being surprised - he had no reason to expect to find _her_ here.

The sound of a throat clearing behind her made her turn around.

“Pegs, long time no see,” Natasha said, a slight smirk on her perfectly pink lips. _Her whole make up is spotless_ , Peggy thought idly, _I need to ask her what brand she uses_. Since her job had started to involve a more physical aspect, make-up that didn’t get ruined with the slightest exertion was something she sorely needed.

“Nat. It’s good to see you. Even in these circumstances.”

“Guests have already been cleared - they’ve been taken to the gym by the pool. Someone will probably be on their way to take statements and begin questioning them shortly,” she said in a casual tone. Peggy mimicked her smirk.

“Oh well, then I guess I better be going then. I wouldn’t want to be confused as someone I’m not.” Quickly unloading the gun, Peggy made sure to smudge her fingerprints before dropping the weapon and making her way towards her friend.

“Are we still on for the 25th?” Natasha asked her as she passed her by.

“Absolutely. I need you to tell me what make-up brand you use and I’m dying for some piroshki.” She gave her a wink and went on, already unbuttoning her waitress vest. Her dress and the rest of her things were in a bathroom close by and she needed to change before making it back to the rest of the party and risking the Miami heat. “Oh, there’s five more in that room to your right. They should be out of it for another hour at least. Someone will come collect them shortly”

Once out of sight, but not out of earshot, she heard Captain Rogers’ voice, “She a friend of yours?”

“Yes. Want me to introduce you?”

***

It was barely a few paces out of the washroom, now wearing a cocktail dress and heels, that she came across a panicked staff member who hurried her to the gymnasium where the rest of the guests were.

* * *

The base of operations disguised as a golf club had had more agents than they had anticipated. On top of that, they seemed to have crashed in right as a fancy function was taking place. Steve had already dropped about ten guys and Sam was going on eight. He had no idea how many Natasha had dropped, as her side of the comms was usually unnaturally silent - the only sounds that made it through were her confirmations on the job done.

He flung his shield as he fought the two remaining guys. It hit the wall at the end of the hallway and bounced back with a metallic clang, hitting one of the men in the back on the return, propelling him right into his waiting fist. As he dropped the last guard with a well-placed boot, Steve picked up on a commotion happening back from where he had come from.

Shield up and at the ready, he went around the bend, expecting more guards and maybe Natasha. Instead, he found a woman standing right over two injured guards, gun in hand. She turned to look at him, not bothering to raise her gun, and he felt like he’d been slapped in the face. 

She was beautiful. 

And familiar - almond eyes and brunette, she had her hair up in a ponytail. The waitress uniform she was wearing was loose and rumpled, but her curvaceous silhouette peaked through. _The glasses weren’t there last time_.

He missed most of her conversation with Natasha, his brain too addled by adrenaline and surprise to quite process their initial words. She started walking off before he could recover, a smirk on her lips and Steve couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from her.

She disappeared as she disrobed and he had to use all of his willpower not to follow that thread. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs.

“She a friend of yours?,” he asked. _How did Natasha call her? Pegs?_ He struggled to remember her name from all those (two? three?) years ago. His usually perfect memory was failing him.

“Yes, want me to introduce you?” She asked, jokingly. Or not. Steve had trouble telling the difference with Natasha most of the time.

Her question hung in the air between them for a second too long. He briefly considered saying yes. It caught him by surprise, the desire. How long had it been since he had truly wanted to go out with a woman? Or even been more than mildly interested? A flash of a memory passed through his mind - that same woman, a fire in her eyes and a raised eyebrow as she taunted him.

All of his latest dates had been blind, arranged by Natasha, and frankly disastrous, and even those had been months ago. Bucky’s return from the dead and Project Insight’s fallout had kept him quite busy.

He shook his head again, both as an answer to Natasha’s question and to dislodge the idea from his head.

“I’m good, thanks. Doubt I could handle her anyways,” he forced a self-deprecating smile (it wasn’t that hard).

Natasha didn’t contradict him.

* * *

  
  


The debriefing and interrogations had been infuriatingly fruitless. Even after taking their molars and cyanide capsules out, all the HYDRA agents would declare was their sodding slogan about cutting off heads. Frustrated and tired, Peggy decided to call it a day. It was late already and she was still jet-lagged; she needed food and a bed. The London streets were darker than she expected as she made her way towards her small home.

HYDRA had taken an almost obliterating blow after Project Insight had been, quite literally, burned to the ground by Captain Rogers. At least in the United States. She suspected the missions on American soil wouldn’t go on for much longer. She stopped at a red light and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel idly. A change of pace would be nice, and she was growing tired of American politics. The thought made her chuckle - once upon a time there had been nothing that sounded more fascinating to her.

Her first years in the diplomatic service had been during peaceful times - cocktails, trade deals, a couple extraditions to shake things up. It had been good, and she was still proud of her earlier work. Nevertheless, the truth was that after the Battle of New York, diplomacy had morphed. Suddenly humans were a single mass, coherent and homogeneous in front of outer space threats. And then the Avengers had popped up; American in the majority, they roamed the globe acting as if borders were mere suggestions.

While infuriating in many senses, her encounter with the Captain in Esclata had helped her get noticed early in her career.

The light turned green and she advanced, lost in the memory.

“What did they do this time? I swear to God, one of these days I will punch one of them in the face,” she muttered, flying through the hallway.

“It’s just Captain America, ma’am, he seems to have arrested a bunch of members of the parliament. He claims they are AIM,” her assistant said, in a lightly accented English. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! If you honestly believe he’s here alone, I’ll eat my shoe. No, he’s clearly the only one they caught. These superheroes seem to always travel by the bunch,” Peggy rolled her eyes, fed up.

Normally, she would have met with the local forces and representatives first, however, given that it was four in the bloody morning, they were still making their way in from their houses. She had been unlucky enough to be the only full diplomat and certified negotiator stationed in the country. Her experience might not have been vast, but it was solid. She didn’t become head of an embassy, however small, at her young age off of nothing.

She rounded the corner and marched into the meeting room where the Captain was waiting. He had been looking out the window, clearly, but turned around at the sound of the door opening.

Peggy hid the surprise his appearance caused her well - he was taller than she expected and she couldn’t deny he cut an imposing figure in his uniform, though he clearly hadn’t had time or opportunity to take a shower, yet. He seemed to have washed his face and hands as best he could, but there was blood on his sleeves and grime in his blond hair. She approached him and extended her hand to shake.

“Margaret Carter, British diplomatic body.” He shook her hand firmly, his palms were calloused, clearly a result of his job, and there was some remaining grime on his cuticles. But his hand was warm and once they let go, it’s heat lingered on her skin. “I’m here to office as an impartial third party.”

“Hi, Steve Rogers,” he said, his voice was deep, warmer than she had expected from a seasoned soldier. He didn’t mention his title, she noted. He gave her a somewhat flustered smile, “Avenger, I guess.” He frowned and his stance took a distinct, straight military posture, “I’m not sure what’s the problem here, ma’am.”

She tried to keep her features neutral. _They never do_.

“Well, Captain Rogers, first and foremost, _you_ are in foreign soil.”

“The Avengers-”

“Are an unsanctioned, privately funded force that happens to be based smack in the middle of the United States of America,” she interrupted him, slightly irritated. “Not every country sees that kindly.”

“We-”

“Is that the royal ‘we’, Captain? You were captured alone.” She knew she was being perhaps a bit difficult but honestly, it _was_ four in the morning, she had barely slept a wink. “As I was saying, a private force, that doesn’t report back to any particular government. And yet, one of its members bears the title of Captain America and wears red, white and blue stars and stripes.”

“The US government didn’t sanction this mission.”

“And yet, you wear their flag when you carry it out. Tell me, _Captain_ ,” she kept on before he could answer, “who gave you that rank?”

She was irritating him, she knew, he had a horrible poker face. A muscle jumped in his jaw. _Or perhaps he, too, is tired. It is four am and he has been fighting until recently,_ a voice said in her head. She took a deep breath, deciding to change tactics.

“Captain Rogers, I’m not trying to be difficult for the sake of it, alright? Let me start again.” She took a seat and gestured for him to take one too. The table was big and she took the right to the head, to her surprise, he took the head, sitting next to her.

“The men I was apprehending are part of a terrorist organization. I can promise you, they do not care for borders.”

“And I believe you, Captain, but that is not the issue on the table. The problem here is sovereignty. That is why you’re dealing with a diplomat and not the military, though it was a close call. I’m going to take a leap here and assume you aren’t familiar with Esclata’s history.” She looked at him for confirmation, he shook his head. “I’d say it’s okay, except that this unawareness of yours is precisely what landed us here. See, it stands to reason you wouldn’t know about Esclata, because it was formed after World War Two, along with many nations in Eastern Europe, as a way to complicate the advances of communism,” she wasn’t completely sure what the protocol was for navigating the area of his missed time, but she was sure it was a sensitive subject. It had barely been more than a year since he had been awoken, but without being cold or tactless, she had to mention it. “As such, world authorities took very little account of who and what they were actually delimiting. The country has many religious, ethnic and cultural differences within its borders, which make political consensus hard to reach.” Peggy looked up from her notes, to find Captain Rogers giving her his whole attention. He had incredible blue eyes. “That said, in the seventies, amidst protests, a leader rose. She was young, and twice as charismatic as she was intelligent. She also happened to be a communist. She rallied the people and made her bid to the presidency through elections with USSR backing. Her party won with a wide margin. This made the more conservative sectors worried, and of course, in the Cold War era, it also made the capitalist block uneasy.”

She could tell he was realizing where this was going.

“The day before she took office, she was assassinated. A coup put the conservative sectors of the military in power, armed with American weapons, and American aid.” She laid her hands on the table, “Now, Captain Rogers, picture, if you can, a nation whose only memory of union and consensus was taken away from them by a foreign power. And now picture how people would feel if the same foreign power, in the form of an enhanced human, came and tried to interfere with their elected officials once again.” She gave him a pointed look.

He took a moment to answer, clearly uncomfortable.

“Yeah, I can understand how that would look. God, why didn’t anyone tell me?” He groaned, hands combing his hair back. He made a face at the feeling, probably able to tell how awfully dirty it was. His massive frame sagged with exhaustion and Peggy couldn’t help but feel at least a tad sorry for the man.

“That, I do not know, thought, if memory serves, the Avengers are not exactly,” she searched for a tactful way to say they were an international disaster waiting to happen. “very diplomatically sensitive.”

“That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it.” He made a face.

“Well, that’s exactly my job,” she smiled at him, feeling unreasonably proud when he returned the gesture, however small.

“They _are_ AIM, though. The parliament members, I can prove it,” he said, spine straightening up with some of that renowned authority.

“I believe you, but kidnapping them to face trial in another country, or disappear, is not the way these things work nowadays, Captain. Or at least not how they _should_ work. They are Esclatarian citizens, and should face trial as such, under their own laws. If you agree to this, the authorities might even let you question them.”

“Alright.” He gave her an awkward smile, “that’s gonna involve a lot of paperwork, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid that’s unavoidable.” She gathered up her papers a bit and stood up, “I’ll officiate as the negotiator in this case, but for future reference, Captain Rogers, if you’re going to work in an international arena, the job does come with costs. The world isn’t at war anymore. Global powers can’t do as they please. Sovereignty must be respected. This coming from a British woman may sound hypocritical, I know, but as an American, your horse isn’t that high either.”

He gave her a tight lipped smile and a nod.

“So, next time, you either get the necessary permissions.” She kept her face neutral, she knew most of the things the Avengers dealt with didn’t involve the luxury of waiting for bureaucratic procedures, or even trusting random people, she wasn’t that naive. “Or you do as your fellow Avengers, and don’t get caught.”

The negotiations had been brutal, and lengthy. She hadn’t had the opportunity to talk with Captain Rogers alone again. The following night he had been recalled for another mission. His replacement, a bald man by the name of Jasper Sitwell, had been surprisingly accommodating, if somewhat unnerving. In the end, the prisoners had been left to face an impeachment trial and, if found guilty, to be stripped of their political privileges, allowing SHIELD to take them in for questioning. 

Yes, Esclata had been a good chance to get her name on the table. After the Battle of New York, diplomatic and secret services were in a flurry, and a lot of overlapping areas started to pop up. Then the Project Insight disaster had left no room for naivété.

Watching it first hand, dealing with the consequences had changed her. Colleagues she had considered friends were revealed as virtual supervillains and entire networks of agents, on all levels, exposed as traitors. From the very bottom to the very top, there had been a parallel state hell bent on world domination. Peggy hadn’t hesitated.

She dropped her purse and keys on the console table as she came into her home, and was about to kick off her heels when she felt it, a swift breeze on her cheek. She froze in her tracks. There was no way she had left a window open, she double checked that every time she left the house.

Better safe than sorry, she took out the gun from her purse and, careful not to make a noise, kicked off her heels and started to assess the situation. From the entry, she could see a part of her kitchen and the stairway to the second floor. The best place to wait for her would be in the living room on the other side of the wall where she was. From there they had sightlines to the open kitchen, but if she decided to go straight upstairs, their chances of shooting her, if that was what they wanted, were slim.

Time was ticking, she couldn’t take too long in choosing or the intruder would suspect. Taking a deep breath she took two steps, feet sliding on the wooden floor, before a soft light turned on in the kitchen. Gun high, she crept closer, only for the light to turn off and Natasha to come into view over the counter, holding a fork and the leftovers that Peggy was planning on eating for dinner.

“You eat that and I swear to god, I _will_ shoot you,” she gritted out, walking towards her and not completely lowering her gun.

Natasha looked up at her, fork halfway to her mouth, took in her state, barefoot, pissed off and armed and wisely put it down.

“I see you continue to be territorial about your food as always, how could I forget?” she said with a smile that Peggy pointedly didn’t return, before looking beyond her and announcing loudly, “you can come down now, we’re good.”

Peggy nailed her with a sharp look.

“You spies and your inability to respect privacy, who the hell did you bring into my house?” She hissed and reluctantly laid her gun over the counter.

“Please, you say that as if you weren’t one,” she said with a raised eyebrow. Peggy didn’t dignify that with an response. “And besides, you know him.”

The sound of soft footsteps on her stairs made her turn around and come face to face, as if conjured from her earlier reminiscence, with Captain Rogers. He was wearing civilian clothing this time, and he looked clean, at least in the soft light filtering in from the windows. His figure was just as impressive out of the uniform.

“You better not have been snooping through my knickers,” she said sharply. She was tired and angry that her plans for at least five hours of sleep had been so rudely ruined.

Rogers seemed to choke on air at that, torn it seemed, between indignation at the prospect and his desire to violently deny it. He turned a violent red and Natasha let out a small laugh.

“Please, Pegs, don’t break him.” She put down the leftovers and Peggy promptly picked them up. She could listen and eat at the same time, and she was starving. “She was joking, Steve, no one is doubting your virtue.” Peggy wasn't completely sure she had been kidding but she decided to drop it.

“Could you please get to the part of this encounter where you tell me what was so important that you couldn’t even send a text about your visit?” She asked, making her way to a chair, there was no reason she had to be forced to eat standing up in her own house.

“We are searching for a friend,” Natasha said, taking another seat at the table. Rogers took another one, as far from Peggy as the table allowed. She hid her chuckle under another bite of food. “And we happen to know there are a lot of other people and alphabet agencies looking for him.”

Peggy swallowed her food with difficulty, looking intently at Natasha, stunned by what she was talking about. The cyborg. She knew now that that cyborg was actually the old best friend and army buddy of one Steve Rogers, lost during WW2 and brainwashed by HYDRA for decades. She was very much aware of the assassinations and accidents attributed to him. MI6 had a kill on sight standing order.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Rogers' voice broke the silence. “But it’s not like that. He didn’t do those things by choice, he was brainwashed,” his expression was excruciatingly endearing. There was pure anguish in his eyes. _Definitely a terrible poker face_. “He-”

“He had his agency and sense of self stripped away,” she completed. “I-” she cleared her throat, which suddenly felt closed. “I read the files.”

“He recognized me, I’m sure,” Rogers said, tone firm. “Before the helicarrier went down, he saved me from the Potomac. He’s in there, somewhere, the guy I know, my friend.” 

Peggy looked at him with no small amount of surprise. He looked so vulnerable, so at odds with the physical strength that composed his frame. Natasha took hold of one of his hands and squeezed lightly, offering some small physical comfort. Steve gave her friend a small smile.

“We’ve been on his trail for almost a year, and we’ve barely got crumbs. We could use an extra pair of eyes.” 

“Nat, I don’t know. I highly doubt he’s stayed in DC all this time, and I’m not Fury, I don’t have eyes everywhere. Most of my old contacts have moved on and they weren’t exactly the right kind to begin with.”

“He’s not in DC, that’s one of the few things we know,” Steve said.

“Then I really have no idea what I could possibly do to help you.” She shrugged, “I’m sorry, but I don’t really have a network set up here in London.”

“That’s the thing,” a small smile crept on Natasha’s face and Peggy got an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “A small bird told me that you’re not gonna be in London for much longer.”

“Bloody hell,” she cursed. “Please never organize a surprise party, you’d be dreadful.”

Peggy had good reflexes, maybe not as good as Natasha with her decades of training, or Rogers, with his enhanced physique, but still decent, and getting better. Which was why, when a third, unknown, voice spoke up from somewhere behind her, she attacked first and left the questions for later.

The attack, if it could be called that, was her metal fork, hurled in the general vicinity of the voice.

“Hey, St- _AH!_ What the hell?!” Peggy, luckily, had miscalculated the man’s height and the fork flew just over the head of the newcomer.

“Peggy!” Natasha scolded her. ”That’s Sam! He’s with us.”

“And how was I supposed to know that?” She threw her hands in the air before getting up to go look for her fork. “I’m sorry that I attacked you with my fork, Sam, when you appeared unannounced inside my house at night.”

“They didn’t tell you I was checking the perimeter?” Sam asked, not sounding particularly upset about the fact that she had hurled cutlery at his head.

“No, they seemed to have forgotten about that small detail. There seems to be a fair amount of those missing lately,” she muttered as she finally found her fork and made her way back to her dinner and uninvited guests.

She gestured for Sam to take one of the vacant chairs and sat back down on hers. Steve was giving her a weird look and Natasha was smiling slightly, almost slyly, Peggy narrowed her eyes at her, suspicious.

“Fine,” she sighed with resignation. “I will try to help, but-” She raised her hand to stop any premature thankfulness. “I can’t do much behind my superior’s backs, alright? I might be a great diplomat but I’m barely starting as a spy, I don’t have much access and I don’t particularly want to be a traitor to the crown. If I happen to become privy to any information that might be relevant to your missing person’s case, I’ll find a way to tell you.”

Silence met her proposal. Sam, Natasha and Rogers exchanged looks, Peggy marvelled at how much they seemed to know each other that they could do that. Natasha didn’t trust easily.

“Thank you, Agent Carter,” Roger’s voice broke the silence and seemed to put an end to their silent discussion. “Natasha will get you the files and information we have. We think Bucky is making his way through Latin America, flying under the radar and keeping to rural areas. However, he needs-” His throat seemed to close suddenly, Peggy looked at him intently. “He needs to visit the cities every once in a while to get maintenance of his arm. He usually breaks into high tech laboratories, does what he needs and gets out, no alarms triggered and none the wiser.”

“We-” Natasha picked up with a light tone, “only know this because he wanted us to. Someone,” she gestured at Steve with her head in a very unsubtle way, “had been getting so worried he made it known. James sent us security footage of him breaking into a lab, As reassurance, I guess.”

“Anyway, Latin America is complicated, borders are very open and not always well monitored.”

 _By American standards,_ Peggy couldn’t help but think.

“So we have no way of knowing where in all the continent he is. We’ve tracked him to Mexico, Chile and Brazil so far, but the parts we think he needs for his arm are only available from a few providers. The problem is that we don’t know when he’s going to need them.”

“So your best bet is having an agent lying in wait,” Peggy finished for him, finally getting a sense of her part in their plan.

“Avenger’s business keeps us pretty busy and takes us everywhere. We can’t monitor everything. He might not show up,” Sam said. “Maybe he’s left the continent and is halfway around the world, and you won’t have to betray any crowns.”

She nodded, feeling some relief.

“We’ll give you everything we have, I’ve vouched for you and well, I don’t think I need to remind you to keep this between us,” Natasha said. Peggy didn’t even dignify that with a spoken response, merely rolled her eyes.

“So,” Peggy swallowed her last bite of food and took a deep breath, “Nat, where is my new home?”

“Buenos Aires, Argentina.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that! next update as always is TBD but comments not only cure my holiday blues but might make it arrive faster so idk, maybe give it a try ;)


	4. Chapter 3

_ Buenos Aires, Argentina _

“<Could you please grab me half a kilo of those?>” Peggy pointed at the carrots with an apologetic smile, cursing inwardly because she couldn’t recall their name in Spanish.

“<Half of carrots? Sure, I’ll get it ready right away,>” the young girl at the counter answered her with a weird look, clearly taking notice of the stubborn accent in her voice that refused to go away no matter how much she practiced the language. 

She had been in the Buenos Aires Embassy for a couple months already, but she was only now getting the hang of the Argentinian's capital accent and mannerisms. Her British stiff upper lip had had a hard time adapting to their easy going, familiar and loud way of living. While the professional circles she moved in were heavily guided by protocol and respect for hierarchy, everyday people cared very little for it and she’d had a learning curve.

_ I have to remember to stop being so formal, and stop using ‘coger’, that’s slang for fucking here _ , she told herself. She sent a small thanks to the kind woman in the clothing store that had relaid to her that crucial tidbit of local knowledge. Those two things had been the bane of her existence lately. It wasn’t that people didn’t understand her, but it certainly wasn’t ideal, to go around asking people if they could fuck carrots for her. 

“I don’t know how you do it,” Angie picked up some of the bags from the counter before thanking the cashier with a very accented  _ gracias _ . “They speak so fast. I need them to talk at like, one tenth their normal rhythm to understand it, and even then, I don’t know half the words.”

Peggy left a chuckle at her friend’s understandable frustration.

“You’ll get the hang of it, we just need to go out more.” She gave her a wink, “or just find a man that’d be willing to take the time to teach you.”

“I wish,” Angie said with a groan. “We’ve been working so much lately that I’m going crazy. I need to relax.”

“You know how it is, the first months are always the worst. And it would all be a million times worse if I didn’t have you here with me.” Angie rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “I mean it, Angie. You’re an amazing assistant and a really good friend. The fact that you came with me all the way here has saved my life.”

“Well, somebody had to.”

They started to make her way back to her apartment, taking in the city. Both the Embassy and their apartment were in one of the richest parts of the city, so everything was clean, trimmed, and relatively new in most cases. It was nice, if somewhat lacking the character that made up other parts of the city, with its old buildings, narrow streets, and graffiti.

They made their way up in the iron caged lift and juggled with their purses, bags and keys to open the apartment door. Peggy took off her shoes as soon as they were inside and directly got to cooking. Argentinians usually had dinner at unreasonably late hours, which neither of them had gotten used to yet. Both Peggy and Angie had a function in a couple hours and while there was surely going to be food there, they were starving  _ now _ .

The function was a dinner to honor the anniversary of some construction firm. That shouldn’t have concerned Peggy, but the firm had recently worked on the restoration of the facade of the Embassy, a quite important project, so she had received an invitation. The dinner was to take place in a fancy salon by the riverside in another of the richest parts of the city. Her plus one was Angie, who was incredibly excited. Even after all the time she had been working on and off with Peggy she still hadn’t lost the taste for the aristocratic circles.

Peggy was mostly feeling apathetic. Construction had very little to do with diplomacy and while connections and networking never hurt, she highly doubted the night would provide her with anything she could use.

* * *

She had been right; nothing here would be of use to her. Her feet were starting to hurt and she’d been seriously eyeing the open bar for an hour. She hadn’t seen any candidate worthy of going home with, though she might start flirting with some guys just to discourage the old man who had been giving her too lingering looks for quite some time.

“Señorita, su bebida,” a thick, flirty voice said close by, she looked towards it to see a waiter giving Angie the cocktail she had ordered a bit ago. His long hair covered his face, given he was bending down (way too much, in Peggy’s opinion) to put down her assistant’s drink on the table. “Un mojito: ron, menta y lima.”

_ Seems someone is going to be going home accompanied _ , Peggy thought, not able to hide her smirk.

Angie giggled and thanked him with a flirty tone, her accent now making her all the more charming.

Peggy went back to eyeing the open bar but a conversation between the couple sitting next to Angie caught her attention.

“<I don’t know, he pronounces the r weird,>” the woman shrugged. “<Porteño he isn’t, that’s for sure, maybe he’s from Entre Ríos, but that doesn’t seem right, either.>” 

“<Maybe he’s Uruguayan?>” The man proposed. 

Peggy, intrigued, decided to insert herself in the debate.

“<Sorry, are you talking about the waiter?>” She asked, leaning over Angie, who was happily sipping her mojito, oblivious to it all. 

“<Yes, of the waiter,>” the woman answered with a smile, turning towards her to include her. “<We can’t recognize his accent, it seems Argentinian but something seems off.>” She turned towards her partner with a pensive look, “<Maybe he lived abroad for a long time?>” 

The man shrugged, not incredibly invested in the mystery.

“<His accent sounded perfect to me,>” confessed Peggy. The woman gave her an understanding smile. 

“It’s a very subtle difference, he almost has no accent.>” She explained, “<but he got a few gendered words wrong, his r is too soft, like it costs him.>” Her hand fluttered about, as if to illustrate the almost unnoticeable nuances of the waiter’s speech. “Ah,” she said, looking over Peggy’s shoulder, “<here he comes, we can ask him.>” 

Peggy turned around to take a look at their subject of debate and froze.

That wasn’t an Argentinian waiter; that was Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

Clad in a waiter’s uniform, his only tell was that his hair was down, when all the rest had it tied up.

_ Better camouflage. _

Peggy started to race through options, all her boredom and tiredness vanished in a second. Should she intervene? Or let it play out? But what if he was here to kill someone? Natasha was sure he wasn’t carrying out any assassinations. He clearly retained his knowledge and skills from the Winter Soldier program, he had managed to fly completely under her radar. Maybe he was being so good at getting rid of his targets that nobody had noticed yet. He  _ had  _ been a ghost story even to the highests levels of the international intelligence community for decades. Or maybe he was just trying to make a living as a waiter in a fancy catering service? Peggy looked around, trying to come up with a course of action.

“<Waiter!>” She called out to him as he was putting down the woman’s drink and before she could start questioning him about his almost-but-not-quite flawless accent. He turned towards her, a perfectly pleasant smile on his face. His name tag read  _ Santiago _ . “<Can you grab->” she sputtered in her panic, and couldn’t help but notice he didn’t seem startled by her slip in the slang, as the rest of the table was.  _ Yes, almost but not quite perfect _ . “<I mean, could you fetch me one of those?>” She pointed at Angie’s drink, “<quickly, please? I’m very thirsty.>” 

Sergeant Barnes nodded at her and left to get her drink swiftly. Peggy kicked Angie under the table.

“Ouch! What the hell?” She looked at her with a hurt expression. “What was that for?”

“I need to get that waiter alone,” Peggy hissed at her, looking around to make sure he wasn’t close to hear her. His files said he had enhanced hearing.

“Peggy, what the fuck? I might not know much Spanish but I’m pretty sure he was flirting with  _ me _ .”

“It’s not about that! Angie, please, he’s not a waiter, far  _ far  _ from it,” she told her, trying to convey all her panic and worry in her tone and expression. It must have worked because Angie immediately sobered up.

“Is this one of those things from your second job I’m not supposed to know about?” she asked, at Peggy’s nod she swallowed and squared her shoulders. “What do you need me to do?”

Peggy looked around and saw him coming back to their table with her mojito in hand. She looked around and saw the stairs leading down to the first floor where the reception had taken place. The toast was about to begin, after serving the waiters would be relatively free for some time, and if they slipped out before they started it wouldn’t draw attention. 

“Get him to meet you in the bathroom downstairs,” she whispered quickly. “I’ll be empty now and I’ll get him alone.”

“Peggy…”

“I just need to talk to him, I swear. He’s not one of the bad guys.” _ I think.  _ She kept that last part to herself.

Sergeant Barnes finally arrived at their table and went to set Peggy’s mojito down.

“<Miss,>” he said with a nod, his voice significantly colder than when he had talked to Angie. “<your mojito.>”

“Gracias,” she thanked him and gave Angie a look that she hoped conveyed both:  _ oh my god  _ and  _ Jesus Christ please get him alone _ .

Angie turned around towards Barnes and looked at him straight in the eyes. Slow as molasses and twice as sweet, she gave him a big, flirtatious smile. She gestured him closer and leaned in. He mimicked her, a smirk playing on his lips. She quickly whispered something in his ear and gave him a head to toe look that bordered on predatory. 

Peggy wouldn’t deny she was impressed. 

Angie stood up in one smooth movement, keeping her body incredibly close to Barnes’, with one last look over her shoulder, she swayed her way towards the stairs.

Barnes gave a step after her, almost as if he wasn’t aware he was doing it. Peggy panicked for a second and coughed, loudly. The sound seemed to snap him out of it and he stopped in his tracks. He turned around after a second and headed for a table on the other side of the room.

Peggy narrowed her eyes, that zone clearly didn’t correspond to him. The toasts were about to begin and dinner was done with. The waiters were picking up the cutlery and used plates and glasses. Barnes went around the table methodically, glasses, plates and cutlery seemed to disappear off the table and materialize in his tray. He loaded it with the whole table service. No ordinary human could carry that much weight and keep it balanced on one hand. She looked intently at the middle of the table, praying he wouldn’t feel her eyes close to him. She saw him pocket a steak knife.

_ Angie _ . Her blood ran cold.

_ No time for subtleties. _ She stood up and quickly made her way towards the stairs, waiving between loaded waiters and milling guests. She found her waiting at the door to the ladies bathroom.

“Angie, leave.”

“What?”

“ _ Leave _ .  _ Now _ . He’s making his way here right now, he has  _ at least _ a knife. He can’t see you.” She ignored the voice in her head reminding him that the Winter Soldier didn’t need a weapon to kill. He was one. 

“What about you?” Angie took hold of her arm, her nails dug into her flesh but Peggy could still feel how they trembled.

“I have training and a gun, you don’t have either. Go, now please. And don’t call the police either.”

Angie nodded, clearly shaken as she tried to remain strong. It was one thing to ask a bit of acting out of her and another to put her in harm’s way. She left the bathroom and Peggy tracked the trailing sound of her heels on the wooden floor.

It wasn’t long before a different pair of footsteps made the same trek in the opposite direction. She took the gun out of her purse and laid in wait. The footsteps advanced towards the men’s room. Stopped.  _ Please be Barnes and come in here _ , she thought. The white wall tile was cold against her bare shoulders. The footsteps backtracked, one, two, three steps, and halted again, this time in front of the women’s bathroom door. Peggy took a deep breath, slowly, in, out. She raised her gun. The door started to slowly open. And then with more confidence.

_ He must have seen my purse on the counter.  _

Barnes walked in. Peggy raised her gun and pointed it at his head.

Barnes froze in his tracks, his back still to her.  _ He can probably sense me _ .

“Sergeant Barnes,” her voice remained strong, “we need to talk.”

His shoulders dropped with a sigh, and he raised his head as if asking the skies for mercy.

“You’re not the American beauty I was expecting,” his voice had lost all traces of Spanish, or any other accent, in favor of a strongly American one.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she answered, feeling slightly amused at the thought of how Angie would react when she told her that a world renowned assassin and ghost story had called her a beauty. “What did you want with her?”

“Well, lady, if I hafta explain it to ya this is gonna get awkward,” his tone was both irreverent and mocking, Peggy rolled her eyes.

“Why the knife, then?” She couldn’t help but feel a smidge of pride when he stiffened, clearly caught off-guard.

“Listen, British lady, I don’t know what a diplomat wants to do with me -or even what you’re doing with a gun, seems a bit contradictory if ya ask me-” he muttered through the corner of his mouth and Peggy wondered if he thought he was being funny. “Something tells me you’re not much of a pacific force, Carter.”

She hid her jolt at the sound of her name in his mouth. She had come here under no cover, everyone in that ballroom could know who she officially was by just looking at the guest list. Using diplomacy as a cover was a double-edged sword.

“I’m a lot more than I seem, Barnes.”

“And I don’t doubt it for a second, but I really don’t want to hurt ya, even though I could. I’m not here to kill anyone, I don’t do that anymore.”

“So I’ve been told.” She decided to take a chance, “by your friend, Captain Rogers.”

“Aw fuck, did Stevie put ya up to this?” He was again pleading up to the skies, resignated. “I shoulda known. I told that little punk to stop fussing and leave me alone, Jesus Christ.”

Peggy had to suppress a snort, jolted at the idea of someone calling the massive Captain Rogers a little punk.

“Can I turn around? Call me old fashioned but I like to look at people in the face when I’m talking to ‘em.”

“Fine,  _ slowly _ .” Not taking her eyes off him for a second she kept talking, “Listen, Sergeant Barnes, I’m not here to take you in or shoot you. I promised a friend that I would keep an eye out for you. She had reason to believe that you would pop up around these parts.”

“Fuck, Natalia too? What’s next? Bird brain also in this?” Barnes shook his head, “I told those three dumbasses that I was fine, getting by.”

“They mean well,” she ventured, to which he replied with a look that could only be read as  _ no shit _ .

“I know that. All the same, every agency out there has a kill on sight order, which, thank you for not obeying, by the way.”

“Not the Avengers,” she interrupted him. “And neither does SHIELD, I think, maybe. If it still exists.”

“It does, believe me. Those things are harder to kill than a roach. And I wouldn’t be so sure about the Avengers, not if all of them are to be taken into account,” he muttered, some of his bravado falling away. Peggy didn't know him well enough to be sure if the flash she saw in his eyes was guilt or something else. However, she did know his files well enough to guess at what he was referring to.

“The three I talked to seemed quite insistent on keeping you alive. And functional,” she added with a look at his arm, which seemed completely normal at the moment. It was only in the quietness of the tiled bathroom that she could hear the very low mechanical whir it emitted every once in a while. “I’m sure they’d have no problem getting the stuff you need for you. Stark Industries makes all kinds of things.”

“Stark is precisely one of the reasons none of this would work,” he said with a clipped tone, confirming her suspicions. “Anyways, what do you want, lady? Are you gonna use that pretty gun of yours or what?” He taunted recklessly, with a sharp smirk and a raise of his eyebrow. Peggy, however, could see the calculations and exit plans being formulated behind his eyes.

“No, I’m not going to shoot you,” she put the gun down. His eyes glinted with a millisecond of surprise.

_ He’s probably not used to people trusting him. _

“Jesus, you’re just like him,” he groaned, frustrated. “Idealistic and hopelessly trusting. You do know who I am, right?”

“I know who they made you out to be. I’m a good judge of character,” she shrugged. “I don’t know whose prints you stole on that knife, but I can guess what you need them for. Would you consider meeting with the well-meaning Avengers?”

“No, not really. I have been avoiding them for a year for my own reasons,” he said, sounding downright petulant.

“Not even if I say please?” she pouted, jokingly.

His choked laugh seemed to surprise him more than her.

_ Who knows when the last time he laughed was? _ She couldn’t help but wonder, feeling a small smidge of pity.

“I don’t make a habit of saying no to beautiful dames, much less when they ask so nicely,” he winked at her and she chuckled, even as she rolled her eyes. “But tonight is going to have to be an exception. I’m sorry.”

“Alright, I can’t make you. Nevertheless, I will have to tell them about it. Here,” she went to her purse, and took out one of her cards. She wrote her other, not-so-public work number on the back. It was only when she turned back around that she realized she had turned her back on him without a second thought.  _ What a difference ten minutes make _ . “This number is untraceable. I’ll be staying here in Buenos Aires until further notice. If you need anything you think I could help you with, let me know.”

He took a slow step closer. He looked puzzled, as if he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to help him.

_ Margaret Carter, this is  _ not _ a stray kitten you can take in and care for. He is a fully grown man with incredible abilities and incredibly capable, do  _ not  _ pity him.  _ Her tone was stern, but even as she saw him delicately take the small card stock rectangle from her hand and stare at it with something like amazement, she felt herself give in a bit.

“Now, I have to go back upstairs before anyone thinks I’ve run off. At least you saved me from the toast. All my respect to engineers, they’ve contributed a lot of amazing things to society, but witty speeches are not one of them.”

Barnes chuckled at that and pocketed the card with a swift flick of the wrist. He nodded at her in thanks and turned around to leave.

“And Barnes,” she stopped him. “Could you consider getting in touch with Rogers? Or at least Natasha? They do worry about you.”

“I know. I’ll see what I can do.”

She nodded and in the blink of an eye he was gone. The slowly closing door and her racing heart were the only attestations he had even been there.

She took out her phone and opened her text app.

**To: Angie**

I’m fine, he’s gone. Nothing bad happened.

**To: Nat**

B was here at a function. When I get home we’ll do a video call and debrief

**From: Nat**

Copy

Better be fast, Steve saw the text. He’s already getting ants in his pants

**To: Nat**

Give me an hour

**From: Angie**

Thank fucking god i was dying out here

Let’s go home, enough excitement for tonight

**To: Angie**

Absolutely, let me just say goodbye.

* * *

As soon as they opened the apartment door Peggy could hear the ringing of an entering video call coming from her computer. She kicked off her heels and walked towards it.

She accepted it and came face to face with Captain Rogers, looking slightly disheveled and highly amped up.

“Good evening, Captain Rogers,” she greeted him.

“Agent Carter,” he answered, sounding somewhat startled. He cleared his throat and ran a hand through his blond hair in a vain attempt to smooth it out. “Hi,” his anxious greeting laced his lips into an awkward smile.

“Hi,” she repeated and kept the smile of her face. Rogers looked somewhat lost, but quite adorable. “Is Nat there?”

“Yes, she went- here she is,” Rogers leaned backwards to make way for Natasha and Peggy saw a bit of the place they were calling her from. There was a very modern and high tech kitchen in the background and in the corner of the screen. A living room could be seen, with leather couches and a big flatscreen. Peggy guessed that was what the Avengers’ Tower looked like from the inside.

“Pegs, how you doing?” Natasha asked with a drawl as she came into view and took a seat. “You alright?”

“Yep, I’m quite alright. So is Angie.” Wilson came into view and sat down with a small wave. Three pairs of eyes, blue, green and brown stared at her. “She’s taking a long and relaxing bath with music, so we can talk freely.”

“Great, then walk us through it. How did you happen to bump into the biggest ghost story of this century and half of the previous one?”

Peggy snorted. “He tried to chat up my assistant.” 

Rogers barked a laugh and muttered something under his breath that sounded something like ‘classic Buck’.

“Really?” Wilson raised his eyebrows up to his hairline. “In the middle of a mission?”

“Oh yes, extremely unprofessional,” she said with a mock stern tone. “At least he only went to get fresh with her in the bathroom after he completed his objective.”

Steve and Nat spoke at the same time.

“Get fresh in the bathroom?”

“Which was?”

“He didn’t get fresh with anything, Rogers.” The connection wasn’t perfectly clear, but she could swear he blushed. “My assistant is a civilian, I made her leave before he arrived. As for the objective, he stole some cutlery, for Pedro Salas’ prints as I found out; he’s one of the owners of a high tech local firm, probably has complete access to their labs. We talked for a bit, I gave him my number and offered my help.” She shrugged and ignored Natasha’s raised eyebrow.

“What did you talk about?”

“I asked him if he was willing to meet with you, he said no. I told him you could probably provide him with the parts he needed, he said no. Because of Stark; he didn’t think he’d be willing,” she explained, trying not to get into it, she didn’t feel it was quite her place. On the other side of the screen Rogers and Nat shared a look.

“We’re working on that,” Rogers said, a sour expression on his face.

“That was it, really.”

“How did he look?” Rogers asked, eagerly shifting in his chair.

“He looked good, I suppose. I don’t have much frame of reference but he didn’t look skinny, or haunted. He could maybe use a visit to the hairdresser, but he joked a bit, and he laughed. I’m no psychologist, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Rogers quickly. “You’ve helped a lot, thank you, Agent Carter.” His tone was so sincere it almost hurt. “I doubt he’ll stay in Argentina any longer. At least now he knows he doesn’t have enemies everywhere.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Peggy interrupted, apologetic at knocking the Captain’s dream down so fast. “As Nat surely knows, I wasn’t sent here out of chance, HYDRA is here. They retreated to some far off strongholds after Insight and the following chase. It’s a small cell but still, it’s probably best he doesn’t show his face here too often.”

“Alright, then maybe it’s for the best if you spooked him?” Wilson said, too unsure to make it sound like a statement.

“Maybe” she said, and ignored Rogers’ dejected expression. He looked like a golden retriever puppy denied his favorite toy.

“Well, thank you Pegs, as always you came through,” Nat gave her a smile. Peggy nodded in thanks as an answer but before she could say anything, her friend’s expression turned sly. “Also, you look amazing.” She winked.

“Oh,  _ I know _ ,” she said with a chuckle. The blue dress she was wearing was a knockout. She didn’t miss the slight blush in Rogers’ cheeks returning as he gave her a quick once-over.  _ Interesting. _

The door to the bathroom opened and Angie’s music loudly poured out. The time for top secret chats was over.

“That’s Angie. I have to go, a pleasure as always, Nat. Wilson, Rogers,” she nodded at each in return, not sure how familiar the treatment should be.

“Thank you for not throwing any cutlery at my head this time, Carter,” Wilson joked and got a laugh out of her. Rogers merely nodded back. His stoic expression was thoroughly undermined by the lingering blush on his cheeks.


	5. Chapter 4

Peggy received a text two days later.

**Unknown Number:**

A lot more than a diplomat, you weren’t kidding

Gotta say, quite the resumé you’ve got

And by the way, I wouldn’t worry about the HYDRA cell anymore :)

Peggy stared at the text messages for a good two minutes until she was sure they were real and not an stress-induced hallucination, especially the emoji part. She was too shell shocked by the smiley face to quite process the fact that the ex-Winter Soldier had somehow broken her cover. She had always been so careful. Nevertheless, she supposed that if anyone could find her MI6 files without triggering any trickwires, physical or digital, it was him. And probably Natasha.

**Peggy:**

Barnes?

**Unknown Number:**

You got it ;)

**Peggy:**

Why?

**SGT JBB:**

They had something I needed, thought I’d make the world a solid

_ And probably some catharsis _ , Peggy thought.

**Peggy:**

What will I find when I go there?

**SGT JBB:**

Not me, that’s for sure

Just some handcuffed goons, some relevant information

**Peggy:**

Marvelous, thank you for stealing my work and ruining months of work and investigation

You better hope I can use something

Don’t do it again

**SGT JBB:**

Oops :)

**Peggy:**

And for Pete’s sake stop with the emojis

You’re a grown man, not a teenager

With an exasperated huff she threw her phone on her comforter and dropped her head on her hands. Her phone buzzed with a new text, rippling the sheets, but she didn’t bother to check it; she had the sinking feeling it would be another emoji and she didn’t feel in the right mental space to deal with that.

_ Months _ , she felt like screaming,  _ almost three months of poring over plans, making nice with very nasty people. All to make a good case, get proper evidence, find a paper trail, hoping to form a case worthy of Interpol. All bloody gone. _

She couldn’t resent Barnes for wanting some very-well deserved revenge, but these superheroes who had no concept of proper procedures were going to be the death of her. Because she categorically refused to let them be the end of her career.

It hadn’t been a deep cover or even a particularly long or arduous investigation, but it had been  _ hers _ . She had her way of going about it, and it worked. Her cover as a diplomat gave her access to a lot of up-scale places most ordinary people would never get close to accessing. Because of that, she had to be extra careful with the takedowns, or someone would start noticing how HYDRA hotspots and secret organizations happened to be brought down right around the time she was appointed to the local Embassy.

Building solid, thorough and acceptable cases through (mostly) legal ways was hard work. It took a lot of intel gathering and patience. She couldn’t storm in, wreck the place down, beat up a few goons, and call it a day. She was perfectly capable of it _ ,  _ mind you, her training was extensive. And the occasion did occasionally rise to get a bit physical, the job certainly called for different types of missions at times, but those were the exemption to the rule.

She let out a grunt and threw herself back down into the bed. Sleep that night had been swiftly cancelled then, she’d have to do reconnaissance on that base before she went forward with the information. She deserved five more minutes for… scheming her next course of action, yeah, that was definitely what she was doing. Scheming, not stewing in her rightful frustration and stealing a few more minutes of comfort, not at all.

* * *

She decided to trust Barnes’ word about what would be found in the base and left her reconnaissance for later when she could sneak in with the local authorities. It wasn’t like she had the time to do a thorough look around anyways. She made an anonymous tip to the trustworthy authorities she knew that same morning before calling in sick at work and setting her arse down on her home desk to cobble together a case with her available materials.

The next morning, sleepless but equipped with a swift disguise, she took her files and made her way to the right offices.

When Agustina Hernandez entered her office, Peggy was already sitting by her desk, a big stack of paper files on her lap. She had had enough time to sweep the small office for bugs and cameras already and was picking at the edge of her frilly pink shirt.

“<Hello, if you don’t mind, I’d rather do this in English, to avoid any confusion on my part,>” she said with a smile as she rose to greet her. 

Hernandez’s eyebrows shot up at her exaggerated, American, southern accent, but she nodded and extended her hand.

“Hello, Agustina Hernandez, anti-corruption office.”

“ Ruth Barton , pleasure to meet ya,” they shook briefly and Agustina took her seat at her desk as Peggy sat back down.

“So, Miss Ruth, what can I help you with?” 

“I’m the person who called in the tip that got you those lovely arrests today. Nevermind that stack of information that will surely seal the deal on your promotion.”  _ If not for merit alone then because your superior is about to spend a good deal of time in prison _ , Peggy added to herself.

“Is that so?” she didn’t bother to hide the scepticism in her tone. “And why call anonymously first and then show your face? Is this a- how do you call it? An I-help-you,-you-help-me situation?”

“A quid pro quo? Not at all, I just wanted to deliver this in person and make sure the investigation is left in the right hands.” Peggy put the files on the desk and parted them in three neat piles. “This is actions, this one is people, names, the whole lot, and this one is places. The main being the base you took down today. I meant to be more detailed, but I ran into some inconveniences.”  _ A metal-armed, emoji-loving inconvenience,  _ she let her lips purse in annoyance.

“Is that so,” Agustina echoed herself, eyes still suspicious as she took the files from the middle stack and started flipping through the first. “And to what do I owe this do-goodness?”

“Let’s say I work for some people  _ very  _ interested in getting rid of this organization, and that they recognize they don’t necessarily have the jurisdiction to do it where they please. Some people in those files would need to be extradited, and will be received very warmly in my homeland.” She smiled and Agustina gave her a wary, but not adverse, look. “That being said, I think it would be best if you let my name and involvement out of the reports.”  _ Not that I gave you the real one _ .

“Why would I do that? With all the work you’ve done?”

“Because I didn’t plan for you to know about me in the first place, my hand was forced,” a little of truth wouldn’t hurt and would probably ease Agustina’s worries a bit, to know that not  _ everything  _ had been orchestrated.

She hated to drop all this on her out of the blue. Hernandez was an anti-corruption official, and a damn good one at that, accepting information when she didn’t know where it came from, except from a foreign power, was pretty much against her nature. Peggy had to trust she’d be willing to bend the rules the  _ smallest  _ smidge, enough to take a look at the files. She would go on to confirm all they said through her own means, either way. She just needed her to believe her enough to keep looking.

She could see the gears working behind Agustina’s brown eyes, weighing pros and cons. She could pick the exact moment she made a decision.

“Alright, Ruth, I’ll look into it, through my own ways. The way things are looking, these are definitely the type of people that should be in prison. If your claims turn out to be true and what’s in these can be confirmed for a trial, that’s where they’ll end up.”

“That’s all I wanted,” she rose from her seat, shook hands with her and left.

She would keep an eye out for the proceedings but she wouldn’t be in Buenos Aires for much longer now that this had been done. Her next assignment would probably drive her away from the developments.

Her phone rang when she was on the sidewalk. She went rummaging in her bag for it and found it was her work phone. She knew who that was.

“Hello,  wonderful weather this morning, isn't it?" The crisp British accent of her handler greeted her.

"Yes, but I always carry an umbrella," she completed the passphrase and stopped to wait for the green light to turn.

“You reported a rush in the timeline. You first estimated the mission would take close to four months, and yet, barely three months in, you’re reporting being done?”

“I’m afraid someone beat me to the base,” she said, not masking the angry bitterness in her tone. “I thought the information I have gathered would be more valuable to be released at this time rather than later. The involvement of the local authorities changes the regular proceedings. If I didn’t expose it now, all the information I have gathered would have been void. As they say here, better a bird in hand than a hundred in flight.”

“I suppose. It is a rather dreadful turn of events, your work is usually so impeccable, it’s a shame. Any idea who might have beaten you to the base?”

Peggy paused. It was one thing to not tell her superiors about the deal she made with the ragtag team of Avengers, another to out-right lie to them. She didn’t want to rat out Barnes, but if they later found out she had known and lied about it, it very much could be grounds for treason.

“I suspect it might have been James Barnes.”

“The Winter Soldier? Why? We have no intel saying he’s in South America.”

“Whoever did it had to have super strength, agility and senses, but no actual superpowers. Forensics point to the whole base being taken down by a single person. There are imprints of a fist on some walls, could have been done with a metal fist. It’s too early to know about any witnesses but-”

“Witnesses?”

“Yes. That’s another thing I wanted to tell you. If this is Barnes, and I’m fairly confident it is, his MO has changed. He’s no longer operating under the Winter Soldier’s protocols, he’s broken through the programming.”

“Those are heavy claims to make, Agent. There’s still a kill-on-sight order on him.”

“He’s openly going  _ against  _ HYDRA. He didn’t kill one single person in that whole base, and he could have. He most definitely had a gun at some point and he’s got that arm of his. He just tied them up with what he found and destroyed some things.”

“Like what?”

“It seems they were rebuilding one of the conditioning devices, the ones that are partially detailed in his files. He tore them apart and took or destroyed the schematics.” She finally arrived at her apartment and took out her keys. “There seems to have been some components missing as well.”

“Anything that could be possibly harmful?”

“You mean like a weapon or bomb components? Not at all, he took some mechanical parts, cables, screwdrivers and the like. Like a maintenance kit for his arm. Nothing chemical that I know of. Regardless, I didn’t have a lot of time to look at the reports either. I couldn’t risk being seen.”

“Of course not.” A small cough followed through the receiver as she stepped out of her lift and closed the rattling steel door behind her. “Well, great work, as always. I guess only time will tell now. We’ll need you to remain in Buenos Aires for a bit more as we work through this. You might get to negotiate some of the extradition process. No matter, I’m sure we’ll find you a new assignment soon. Goodbye, Agent Carter.”

“Goodbye,” she closed the door behind her and laid against it, taking a breather. She hadn’t slept that night thanks to James Barnes and his shenanigans. She was tired, her feet already hurt and she ached for a relaxing bath. She yanked the itchy blonde wig off and stuffed it into her bag.

“How did it go with your errand?” Angie called from the kitchen, “you took longer than I expected so I made lunch!” Peggy kicked off her shoes and made her way to her friend. “Now, I know I’m not much of a cook, so I went simple: chicken breast with potatoes and carrots. It should be done in five.”

“Angie, did I ever tell you how much I love you?” she greeted her with a grin.

“Only occasionally. It does always seem to involve food, though.” She made a pensive face, clearly joking. “It’s almost as if that was the way to your heart.”

“You’re damn right it is. Let’s order ice-cream from that place we like. We still have like fifteen flavours to try.”

“Oh, fancy ice-cream and love declarations? Peggy, is it February? Don’t go all maudlin on me.”

“Please,” she said with a laugh. “You know I’m married to my work, and the ice-cream is to celebrate.”

“Ohh, celebrate what?” Angie looked at her but Peggy just gave her a pointed look, “oh I see, we’re celebrating something that didn’t happen?” She asked with a knowing smile.

Peggy tapped her nose and went to look for her phone. She was craving something decadent and full of chocolate.


End file.
